Authenticity-Driven Motivations in Oligopoly: Efforts, Pricing, and Welfare, with Aggey Semenov
Abstract. We develop an oligopoly theory of brand authenticity as an identity-based attribute valued by only a subset of consumers. Firms choose prices and costly efforts, while managers may derive private authenticity benefits from being perceived as intrinsically motivated. Heterogeneity in consumer preferences and managerial motivations jointly determines equilibrium authenticity provision, pricing, and consumer sorting. Firms led by more authenticity-driven managers invest more and, under standard complementarity conditions, charge price premia. Authenticity is privately unsustainable when the attentive audience is small, viable when it is large, and fragile at intermediate sizes. In this fragile region, laissez-faire equilibrium exhibits inefficient exit despite socially valuable participation, reflecting an extensive-margin inefficiency that can be addressed by participation support or third-party certification that raises perceived authenticity.
Cross-policy Effects: Lockdown Stringency, Race, and COVID-19 Vaccine in U.S. Nursing Homes, with Roland Pongou, Ghislain Junior Sidie, and Guy Tchuente, AEA Papers and Proceedings, 115: 457-461
The Reciprocity Set, with Roland Pongou, Journal of Mathematical Economics, 102980, 1 - 15
Justice, Inclusion, and Incentives [Open Access], with Ghislain H Demeze-Jouatsa and Roland Pongou, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 36(2), 101-131
Robust Contracts in Common Agency, with Keler Marku, and Sergio Ocampo, The Rand Journal of Economics, 55(2), 199 - 229
Laissez-faire, Social Networks, and Race in a Pandemic, with Roland Pongou, and Guy Tchuente, AEA Papers and Proceedings, 112:325-29
Supermajority Politics: Equilibrium Range, Policy Diversity, Utilitarian Welfare, and Political Compromise, with Aseem K. Mahajan, and Roland Pongou, European Journal of Operational Research, 307 (2), 963-974
A Non-Parametric Approach to Testing the Axioms of the Shapley Value with Limited Data, with Victor Aguiar and Roland Pongou, Games and Economic Behavior, 111, 41-63
Optimal Interventions in Networks during a Pandemic [Open Access], with Guy Tchuente and Roland Pongou, Journal of Population Economics, 36 (2), 847-883
Valuing Inputs Under Supply Uncertainty: The Bayesian Shapley Value, with Roland Pongou, Games and Economic Behavior, 108, 206-224
Vaccine and Inclusion, with Zephirin Nganmeni, Roland Pongou, and Bertrand Tchantcho, Journal of Public Economic Theory, 24 (5), 1101-1123
Overconfidence and Welfare in a Differentiated Duopoly, Managerial and Decision Economics, 43(3), 751-767
An Index of Unfairness, with Victor Aguiar, Roland Pongou, and Roberto Serrano, in Handbook of the Shapley Value, E. Algava et al. (eds.), CRC Press Taylor and Francis, pp. 31-48
On the Dynamic Analysis of Cournot-Bertrand Equilibria, with Aggey Semenov, Economics Letters, 183 (108549), 1-5
Systemic Exposures vs. Facility Vulnerabilities: Policy Efficiency, Ownership, and Mortality in U.S. Nursing Homes, with Roland Pongou, Ghislain Junior Sidie, and Guy Tchuente
Dynamic Legislative Design: Bill Importance and Optimal Supermajority Thresholds, with Roland Pongou
Rationing to Avoid Conflict: A Centralized Assignment Problem, with Zephirin Nganmeni, Roland Pongou, and Bertrand Tchantcho
Private School Vouchers in Texas: Past experience and future consequences, with Maroula Khraiche and Elisa Taveras, CBEST Border and Business Briefs, 21 (2), 1-6
The use (and misuse) of tariffs in North America: A new trade war? , with Maroula Khraiche and Armando Lopez-Velasco, CBEST Border and Business Briefs, 20 (1), 1-7